We are just days away from boarding that morning flight we watch longingly from our breakfast table each day. The plane that hurtles above our front door is on its way to Port Moresby at 7:20am where there are other planes waiting to take passengers to wonderful places. Places like Cairns. As we watch that glinting dot pass us by we wonder, where are those people going? If they aren’t heading to Cairns, we’re sorry for them. Because that is where our hearts always want to go. It’s our own personal land of milk and honey, and any other Air Niugini destination is found lacking in our eyes. In just days, that will be us and our destination will be Cairns.

Aside from the excitement we’re feeling about being back in Willa’s place of birth, we could be feeling nervous. This is the first major trip away from home where the girls will be totally out of their element. Out of the safety of their room and the comfort of their routine. Granted, the routine will be disrupted by playing, swimming, eating, and being with grandparents, but it’s a disruption nonetheless. Our most recent experience with this was our trip to the US last June, and many of you will remember it was rough. The times with family and friends were unforgettable. The nights of screaming were also unforgettable. The black man with red eyes coming out of Ray’s wall made his first of many appearances. We prayed alone, we prayed in community, we prayed globally. We fasted. We tried this technique and that technique. And then finally our lives became normal again.

When the world watched 2016 turn into 2017, it rejoiced. For whatever reason it seemed that 2016 was a year of missed expectations and massive disappointments for everyone, and a collective sigh of relief could almost be felt. My reaction was the opposite. I silently screamed, “Noooooo!!!” and tried valiantly to keep the clock from its relentless march. Because 2017 means transition, transition, transition for us. It’s the Year of the Furlough, or what I like to call in my heart the Year of Uprootedness. I’m dreading it and longing for it all at the same time. To see family, to lose my home. To have cooking conveniences and generally be physically comfortable, to lose our routine. To reconnect to our home culture, to lose our PNG family. Furlough is a ball of joy and heartache slammed into seven grueling months. And we just got our girls back from the darkness of night. Will they spiral again, starting with a much-needed-but-routine-blowing vacation in Cairns??? Oh, 2017, what will you do to us!!

I peeked around the hallway corner to check on Ray. She was happy, sitting in the middle of the floor directly under the fan in her underwear reading energetically to her dolls. I popped back to the living room reporting all was well to Brian as I sneaked out the door for an afternoon run with Jett and Emily. Ray hardly ever falls asleep during nap time, but she’s happy to “rest” with her books and toys. When I came home she was draped over the couch, groggy eyes staring menacingly out at me.

“Oh, no. Did she fall asleep after I left?” I asked Brian, eyeing her warily.

“Yep. Passed out in the middle of her floor. But she’s waking up okay this time.”

When she does go to sleep in the afternoons, she wakes up grumpy and sensitive. We have looooong evenings with a Ray who has napped. So we left her alone to slowly come out of the fog and she did just fine. As she sat silently watching me cook dinner, I asked how her rest had been. Did she have dreams?

“Yes. I dreamed.”

“What about, kiddo?”

“God.”

“Um… what? Good! What did God do in your dream?”

“God sang to me, and I went to sleep.”

“What song did he sing?”

“A song for my heart.”

“Why do you think he sang to you?”

“He loves me.”

“Do you love him?”

“Yes, I do.”

Later Brian asked her if she could sing the song for him and she said, “Hmmm… no. It’s just in my heart.”

So though we sometimes still have to actively choose peace in facing this Year of the Furlough, we’re not feeling nervous about the impending transitions; the ones that bring joy and heartache, newness and loss, refreshment and disruption. God has transformed her sleeping experiences from dripping evil to holy glimpses of himself. He is answering our nightly prayer that when our girls sleep he would reveal himself to them. We pray over and over that he would call them and pull them to him while protecting them from evil. We now know beyond any shadow of a doubt he’s doing it. And he will keep doing it as they sleep in this hotel room, that person’s house, this new apartment, that interesting camper. He is their true Father, and will sing them a heartsong as they drift into sleep, no matter where their bed happens to be.